Commercial crew demo missions manifested for Dragon 2 and CST-100

March 5, 2015 by Chris Bergin

Mission planners at NASA have installed four Commercial Crew demonstration missions into the International Space Station (ISS) manifest. Both SpaceX’s Dragon 2 (V2) and Boeing’s CST-100 will conduct uncrewed and crewed qualification missions – beginning as early as December, 2016 – prior to the awarding of the US Crew Vehicle -1 (USCV-1) mission for NASA.

Commercial Crew to the ISS:

The path towards regaining American independence for its crew transportation needs has fostered a collaboration between the innovation of American industry and the experience of NASA.

While this association isn’t unique for NASA – with the Agency’s previous crew transport, the Space Shuttle, cared for by numerous parties within the aerospace industry base – the Commercial Crew approach is a major evolution, with NASA handing over the operation of vehicles to the contracted companies.

The work on the access tower – which includes an elevator and a 42 foot long arm with its own white room – will be conducted in-between regular launches of the Atlas V and is expected to be completed in 18 months time.

The pad abort vehicle is a close match to the Dragon 2 (as it is internally known as, as opposed to the V2 name it was giving during its announcement), at least from its Outer Mold Line (OML).

It is set to launch from a mount located at SLC-40, although there is no firm date for this event.

A previous placeholder of March 4 has since moved to mid-March, although it remains to be seen if SpaceX will attempt the test before the next scheduled launch of its Falcon 9 v1.1, set to loft the TurkmenistanSat spacecraft – which is set for March 21.

Both companies will be working through their CCtCap milestones with a firm eye on launching their spacecraft on test runs to the International Space Station by at least 2017.

As recently noted at political hearings, the dates are projections, based on required funding from NASA’s budget being realized. It was stated – once again – that such funding needs to be protected, in order to ensure the schedules do not slip.

Should all go to place, the second mission will involve a crew – yet to be selected – on a mission designated “Boe-CFT”, launching in July, 2017, on a 14 day mission to the ISS.

The FPIP dates show SpaceX to be the most advanced in the Commercial Crew path, with their projected test flight dates currently set to win the honor of being the first Commercial Crew vehicle to arrive at the orbital outpost.

This would be followed by “SpX-DM2”, a crewed flight, launching in April of 2017, on a 14 day mission. This would mark the first time astronauts have launched from American soil on a US built spacecraft since Atlantis’ STS-135 mission in 2011.

Such a scenario – even with “just” the two Dragons – would be at the mercy of natural schedule changes, especially with dates two years into the future. It is also likely the commercial crew spacecraft will be spaced apart as schedules are refined.

Following the conclusion of their test flights, each company will fly at least two Full Operational Capability (FOC) missions to the ISS.